Unconfirmed MINUTES MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY REFERENCE GROUP
TIME AND DATE 9.30 am Wednesday 16th May 2007
LOCATION Meeting Rooms 1 & 2, Level 10, Building C, Centennial Plaza Building 300 Elizabeth Street Sydney NSW 2000
PRESENT Andrew Papandreas AI Group / SimsMetal Kristina Barrett AIG Dave Henry AMWU Maria Hooker NSW Food Industry Training Council Limited (Allied Mills) Steve Bali AWU Sharyn Buck Self Insurers Association Steve Ruff Self Insurers Association Ken Hocking Timber Trade Industrial Association Mark Haslam WorkCover Susanne Hollis WorkCover IRG Branch, Convenor Lisa Willis WorkCover Manual Handling Program Daniel Beavon WorkCover OHSD Representative (Manufacturing Team) Lynette Harper WorkCover Premiums Group Sarah Nicholson WorkCover, Manufacturing Team Graeme Lambkin WorkCover, Minutes
APOLOGIES Robert Sams Australian Business Limited (Sara Lee Industries) Ken Stenner Printing Industries Association of Australia Rob Stobo WorkCover The meeting commenced at 9.30AM
1. WELCOME, INTRODUCTIONS AND APOLOGIES The Convenor opened the meeting at 9.30am, noted apologies and welcomed all members and guests, Lisa Willis, Managing Coordinator Manual Handling and Lynette Harper, Director Premiums Group.
2. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING 2.1 Confirmation of Minutes of Previous Meeting It was requested that the reference to ‘Chickadee’ be removed from the previous minutes. With this change, the Minutes of the Manufacturing IRG meeting held 28 February 2007 were accepted as an accurate record. Moved: Ken Hocking Seconded: Andrew Papandreas
D:\Docs\2018-04-02\0dcf6a2cd54d59be751b050a03311859.doc Page 1 of 8 Last saved: 6-Jun-07 2.2 Matters arising: Papers (WC report, OHSD report, Service Providers brochure and Industry Summary report) were emailed prior to meeting- in order to save paper, members agreed to bring their received papers to future IRG meetings. No matters arising.
3. PRESENTATIONS 3.1 Manual Handling (Lisa Willis) In response to the 2005 Safety Summit, WorkCover is implementing a five year cross- divisional program costing $12 million and is committed to achieving a 40% reduction in claims by 2011/2012. Manual handling is a priority area for action in the National OHS Strategy.
Manual handling represents the highest cost to the WC Scheme accounting for 37% of all major claims, 17,000 claims annually at a total cost of $370 million, with an average cost of $22,000 per claim.
The key focus areas of the program are promotions, interventions, partnerships and capability. One of the key objectives is to increase awareness of manual handling issues across all industry sectors.
Promotions: Promotions will include branding to communicate key messages and themes, targeted as well as mass media campaigns, industry workshops, community events and awards. Other promotions will include website, publications and products. Initially advertising will be focussed at a broad community level and this will evolve to a more targeted level of advertising. A Manual Handling Conference will take place in June.
Interventions: Baseline data collection and business intelligence is resulting from Industry Team Interventions including compliance and advisory visits. WorkCover will also participate in HWSA projects. Benchmarks will be assessed every year to assess how we are performing. Interventions will consist of advisory visits, workshops, one- on-ones, and the usual compliance activities.
Partnerships: WorkCover will engage internal stakeholders in collaborations and establish or build on existing strategic partnerships with industry to explore problems and identify high risk tasks, identify and validate solutions, agree on industry drivers for change, recommend commissioned research, interact with IRGs and other stakeholders, promote and transfer good practice into industry and conduct industry stakeholder workshops. A partnership has already been established with the Australian Workers Union to develop a shearers’ kit. Both a Cross IRG Consultative Committee and a WorkCover Manual Handling Task Force have been established to look at strategies that target manual handling.
Capability: WorkCover will build its technical capability and staff skills with specialist recruitment and a learning framework. Tertiary training to improve the skills and knowledge of Inspectors in relation to manual handling is also being considered.
Linkages: The Manual Handling Program will create and maintain linkages to the WorkCover Improvement Framework, Serious About Safe Business, ASCC, Harmonisation, Incentives Program, the IRGs and BAU.
D:\Docs\2018-04-02\0dcf6a2cd54d59be751b050a03311859.doc Page 2 of LastSaved: 6/06/2007 UNCONFIRMED Communication is vital – Employers and employees need to look at core activities and discuss what is the safer way to meet the demands and gain benefits. Employees need to feel comfortable enough to tell their employer that what they are doing is “too much” or “too heavy”. Many employees are hesitant to do this, as they fear it may cost them their job.
Solutions will include risk assessments, a manual handling solution kit, targeting industries where manual handling injuries are common and making the website available where industry specific solutions are available to any particular job/task.
The next steps are to collate and interpret data, identify key barriers and solutions, develop and disseminate report, recommend project activities or outcomes and implement approved activities. The program will undergo constant evaluation so that any findings can be incorporated into future WorkCover activities.
Discussion following the presentation included Q. How is the average cost of a manual handling claim calculated? A. The average cost of all claims is calculated by dividing the total cost of claims by the total number of claims. As manual handling has a large proportion of relatively small claims, the average cost of manual handling claims is slightly lower than the average for claims of all types. The worrying aspect of manual handling claims is the large number of claims.
Q. Can you provide more information about the Industry Solutions Program? A. Lisa advised that they’re looking at including industry specific pages/tools in the new website. They also plan to run a series of workshops that will focus on solutions for specific industries. She hopes that when there are technical specialists such as ergonomists employed, they will be able to go out to industry to assess specific tasks/jobs.
Q. Can you provide more information about the issue of risk assessments? A. Lisa advised that National Standard for Manual Tasks and the National Code of Practice for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders from Performing Manual Tasks at Work are being developed at a national level. It should be possible to use the codes to assist in the development of tools for risk assessments.
Q. What are the recommended lifting weights? A. There are no longer any recommended lifting weights. Before lifting any object, a risk assessment should be conducted that takes into account all factors (e.g. location, size and shape of object, etc) rather than the weight alone. The new Code of Practice doesn’t even mention weight.
Q. Have you spoken with schools about manual handling? A. Not yet but we’re considering a program in schools which might consist of talks to students or a CD-ROM game for instance.
3. WORKCOVER REPORTS 3.1Workers Compensation Division Report (Lynette Harper Director Premiums Group) Lynette Harper presented the Workers Compensation Division Report.
D:\Docs\2018-04-02\0dcf6a2cd54d59be751b050a03311859.doc Page 3 of LastSaved: 6/06/2007 UNCONFIRMED Q. Does the 5% reduction in premiums only apply to new policies? A. No. It applies to all policies, new or existing, but the reduction will only take affect for policies commencing or renewing from 30 June 2007.
Q. Are apprentice wages used for calculating the experience adjustment? A. Apprentice wages are included in the calculation of an eligible employer's premium as per the current formula. For example an employer's basic tariff premium, experience adjustment factor, dust disease levy, mine safety premium adjustment and experience premium will all be calculated using the employer's total wages including apprentice wages. The apprentice incentive discount will be calculated using the apprentice wages multiplied by the WorkCover Industry Classification rate for the industry in which the apprentices work and this amount will be deducted from the final premium to arrive at the premium payable.
Q. In the case of an injured worker, where does the cost of re-training a worker come from? A. Lynette asked that the convenor follow up this matter with Mary Hawkins.
Action: Susanne to follow up with Mary Hawkins regarding the cost of re-training an injured worker.
Q. Question asked re: ‘capping’ rule A. The question related to the $150,000 cap and the ‘2T rule’. It was explained that the two caps are entirely independent. The $150,000 cap is the large claim cost cap and is the maximum amount that a single claim can impact on an experience- adjusted employer’s premium. That is, even if a claim estimate were for $200,000 only $150,000 of that particular claim cost would be used in the calculation of the employer’s experience premium. The 2T rule is part of a premium capping system designed to offer protection to medium employers impacted by large claims costs. The current premium capping arrangements are: where the basic tariff premium (T) does not exceed $50,000, the total premium cannot exceed one and a half times the basic tariff premium where the basic tariff premium is equal to or greater than $50,000 and less than $150,000, the total premium cannot exceed two times the basic tariff premium where the basic tariff premium is equal to or greater than $150,000 and less than $300,000 the total premium cannot exceed two and a half times the basic tariff premium.
Q. Have you looked at the Victorian model? A. This question was with regard to statistical claims estimates, where WorkCover NSW was in bringing SCE’s into the WorkCover Scheme (as part of the outcomes of the 2005 Premium Review) and whether WorkCover had looked at the Victorian SCE model. The answer was that for various reasons it was not intended to bring SCEs into the NSW WorkCover Scheme by the end of 2007 as previously envisaged. However, as part of the consideration of a NSW SCE model WorkCover had looked at the Victorian SCE model.
D:\Docs\2018-04-02\0dcf6a2cd54d59be751b050a03311859.doc Page 4 of LastSaved: 6/06/2007 UNCONFIRMED 3.2Occupational Health and Safety Division Report. Daniel Beavon, Coordinator Manufacturing Team provided a report to the meeting. A copy of the report was tabled and will accompany the minutes. Daniel addressed the following.
Action: Mark Haslam agreed to raise the matter of the abbreviation ‘CARS’ (Conformation of Advice Record) with the Statewide Programs Team. Sharyn Buck advised that self-insurers use a form called a ‘Corrective Action Required’ and this is causing some confusion.
Q. What types of activities/improvements are eligible under the Safety Solutions Rebate Program? A. As this program is very new, we’re unable to give actual examples of what is eligible and what is not. Further information is available on the WorkCover website and examples of actual activities/improvements are likely to be added as they are approved.
Q. Some of our members attach frames and trusses to trucks. What’s the safest way to do this to avoid a fall? They are having an on-site meeting on Friday to look at this. A. Send the details of the meeting to Daniel and he’ll try to organise an Inspector to attend the meeting to look at the problem.
4. IRG PRIORITY ACTIVITIES 4.1 Workplace Safety Culture Project Workplace Safety Culture Project. The IRG received an update on project progress and work to date.
Focus group report back The convenor organised a focus groups (a small group of employees and a supervisor) to trial the amended survey. The focus group was held at Chickadee before Easter and results written up in the latest version of the worker survey. The safety culture survey tool was focus tested for language, understanding, and appropriateness of questions with workers within the manufacturing sector. The participants provided some very useful feedback. The convenor thanked Sharyn Buck for organizing the group.
Culture survey tool – Injury Management questions/ Excel database The convenor has contacted Injury Management experts and developed some IM questions. These were also focus tested.
Some possible technical problems have been identified re the development of the Excel database. There are a number of technical issues including that it is extremely difficult to provide a CD with a program that will be compatible with all the various operating system (PC vs. MAC, Windows (2000/XP/Vista), Linux etc).
The preferred architecture would be to provide something via a web browser, however your requirements indicate the need for the users to have the ability to save survey results (in a database) and this again would cause operating system compatibility and potential licensing problems.
D:\Docs\2018-04-02\0dcf6a2cd54d59be751b050a03311859.doc Page 5 of LastSaved: 6/06/2007 UNCONFIRMED Some discussion took place about how we could progress this project. It was suggested that while it may be impossible to overcome all the technological requirements of potential users, developing a spreadsheet using an early version of Excel (eg 2000) may be a viable option.
Case Studies The convenor has obtained five case studies, two from IRG members and three from other manufacturers. The format and content will be discussed in the working group.
Action: Susanne asked if members could help by coming up with further examples that might be used as case studies.
Pilot & Evaluation Working Group members will work on this at the working group meeting following the IRG-agreed in principle to participate in the piloting of the IRG safety culture tool, and agreed that large manufacturing employers promote it as a tool for their members, should the pilot be successful.
When completed, the safety culture CD will be distributed to manufacturers via the IRG membership networks. A promotion and evaluation strategy will be developed by the IRG working party.
At the previous meeting members agreed that the pro forma could also be used as the basis of an Action Plan for the kit. This will go to the working group.
4.2 Transient Workers Project At the previous meeting Regina suggested that the training issue needed to be raised with both the Federal and State Ministers. Action: Regina to follow up. This action is held over to the next meeting. The convenor sent the draft of the transient workers brochure to the working group and tabled the draft at the meeting.
The convenor reiterated the findings on the issues related to induction training so far: there is inconclusive evidence that such a scheme would improve the health and safety of labour hire and other transient workers; such a scheme would impose an additional level of administrative red tape inconsistent with whole-of-government policy, and may require legislative change; such a scheme is inconsistent with the direction that WorkCover has taken with regards to the accreditation of generic OHS induction training; the cost of establishing and maintaining such a scheme would be substantial, and is likely to outweigh its benefits; and, analysis of incidents and prosecutions suggests that causes tend to be related to poor site-specific induction and supervision, rather than deficiencies in general OHS (i.e. labour hire agency) induction.
The project has therefore reached an impasse. The AMWU has recently withdrawn his support for the IRG’s working party and its project over concerns about the direction that the project was taking. The AMWU’s concerns are being dealt with in another forum.
D:\Docs\2018-04-02\0dcf6a2cd54d59be751b050a03311859.doc Page 6 of LastSaved: 6/06/2007 UNCONFIRMED A way forward and a way to reach transient workers without going down the general induction-training path needs to be found. Therefore, as previously discussed, a communication strategy to make basic information available to vulnerable/transient workers in the manufacturing industry needs to be developed. WorkCover and the IRG are currently developing a communications strategy to ensure that affected workers have access to the information being developed under the project. However, this process is made difficult by the withdrawal of union support. Members suggested the RCSA was the most appropriate means of reaching transient workers. Dave Henry stated that he would seek resolution of the issues re induction training outside the IRG. The meeting agreed to defer any further action on this project till the issues are resolved outside the IRG.
5. OTHER BUSINESS
5.1 Member Reports Maria Hooker advised that she recently delivered a presentation on bullying and harassment.
Dave Henry advised that the AMWU has become aware that the ASCC proposes to collapse the mesothelioma register. The AMWU is against this move as they maintain that maintaining this register still has merit at least until 2020.
5.2Industry Safety Standards Following the establishment of the Industry Solutions Program in August 2006, three industry safety standards have now been posted onto the WorkCover website.
The industry safety standards were developed in partnership with industry to resolve long-standing occupational health and safety issues relating to grain augers, post drivers and erection of timber roof trusses.
The industry safety standards can be downloaded from the following links:
http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/Industry/IndustrySolutions/default.htm
Grain Augers http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/Publications/Industry/Rural/grain_augers.htm
Post Drivers http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/Publications/Industry/Rural/post_drivers.htm
Erection of Timber Roof Trusses http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/Publications/Industry/Construction/safe_erection_timber_roof_trusses .htm
D:\Docs\2018-04-02\0dcf6a2cd54d59be751b050a03311859.doc Page 7 of LastSaved: 6/06/2007 UNCONFIRMED The development of the industry safety standards has been a combined effort by the three committees and WorkCover staff. They aim to improve safety outcomes for persons involved in the rural and construction industries in NSW.
Susanne advised that this was to be Maria Hooker’s last meeting as a member of the Manufacturing IRG as she is moving to a position with the meat industry. Susanne thanked Maria for her work with the IRG.
Action: Susanne asked that if there were any members of the IRG who were interested in joining a Manual Handling Focus Group, they should email her and she will pass the details on to Lisa Willis.
Action: Susanne asked that any members who are interested in ‘Industry Solutions’ should notify her so that she can gauge the level of interest
6. NEXT MEETING: 27th June 2007 WorkCover Offices, Level 10 300 Elizabeth Street, Sydney
The meeting closed at 12.30pm
Susanne Hollis Convenor Manufacturing IRG Ph: 02 4321 5103 Fax: 02 9287 5103 Mob: 0421 611 164 Email: [email protected]
Attachments 1. WorkCover’s Workers Compensation Division Report to IRGs April /May 2007- 2. OHS Divisional Report to Manufacturing Industry Reference Group – April /May 2007 3. Industry Summary Report 4. Service Providers Brochure
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